FOR Example (A Critique of Never)
Big Apple’s Littlest Bites: Coming of Age on Film in NYC
BAM Rose Cinemas, Brooklyn Academy of Music
30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217
To commence at 3:45 pm on Nov 10, 2024
The Reversible Destiny Foundation is happy to announce the screening of the 1971 film For Example (A Critique of Never) at BAM Rose Cinemas, Brooklyn, New York, as part of the series Big Apple’s Littlest Bites: Coming of Age on Film in NYC.
Directed by Arakawa, and written together with Madeline Gins, the feature-length film is a great example of their creative collaboration that gives insight into their early works. It premiered at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1971, and bridged the New York conceptual art movement with the radical experimental film community of that period. In his book Film as a Subversive Art, film critic and historian Amos Vogel described it as “unquestionably a major work of the American Avant-Garde of the seventies”.
As Arakawa describes it in a contemporaneous letter, “the young boy searches for ways to be in the world. He is abandoned and so must find out by himself. What he demonstrates after all is poetry of action. The child happens to live on the Bowery. His experiments take place there and in the neighborhood playground.” Through the voice of Madeline Gins and the lens of Arakawa, For Example (A Critique of Never) invites viewers to re-envision the backdrop of NYC as extensions of themselves.
We are excited to share the newly restored version of the 16mm feature-length film for the first time in theaters. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with special guests.
The event is ticketed and open to the public. For more information, visit https://www.bam.org/film/2024/big-apples-littlest-bites-for-example.
Nov 8—14, 2024
Big Apple’s Littlest Bites: Coming of Age on Film in NYC
Programmed by Jessica Green
@ BAM Rose Cinemas (30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217)
Growing up in New York City is an experience as distinct as it is varied—and arguably no city on the planet is more imagined or documented in film. The films in Big Apple’s Littlest Bites capture in one way or another, or are in serious conversation with, coming of age in the Big Apple. The experiences, aesthetics, and ideas in these fiction films, documentaries, experimental, and short films range from sweet as apple pie and just what the doctor ordered to rotten to the core. The series includes well-known and new classics about being a kid in the big city, along with forgotten and unknown gems that all have something to say.
The series includes: Old Enough (Dir. Marisa Silver, 1984), Free Time (Dir. Manfred Kirchheimer, 2019), The Central Park Five (Dirs. Ken Burns, Sarah Burns & David McMahon, 2012), Rich Kids (Dir. Robert M. Young, 1979), Juice (Dir. Ernest R. Dickerson, 1992), Just Another Girl on the I.R.T (Dir. Leslie Harris, 1992), For Example: A Critique of Never (Dir. Arakawa, 1971), The Squid and the Whale (Dir. Noah Baumbach, 2005), The Window (Dir. Ted Tetzlaff, 1949), Fame (Dir. Alan Parker, 1980), The Long Night (Dir. Woodie King Jr., 1976), Crooklyn (Dir. Spike Lee, 1994), Aaron Loves Angela (Dir. Gordon Parks Jr., 1975), Punching the Sun (Tanuj Chopra, 2006) and a shorts program.
For more information, visit https://www.bam.org/film/2024/big-apples-littlest-bites.
Image: For Example (A Critique of Never), directed by Arakawa, 1971, 90 minutes, black and white 16mm film
